


A Ghost's Touch

by writing_ramblings



Series: McReyes Winter Break 2018 [5]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, M/M, McReyes Winter Break, mcreyes event, pinning Gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 03:38:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13379334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_ramblings/pseuds/writing_ramblings
Summary: McCree's gone on a mission, the first time Gabriel isn't with him and it's for too long.





	A Ghost's Touch

**Author's Note:**

> day five - shiver

Gabriel had never really experience a shivering cold before. Due to the SEP, his body has been able to adjust to the temperature around him, never really feeling too hot nor too cold. Winter days were nothing, but that didn’t stop Ana from making him sweaters—nor stopped him from wearing them.

It was surprising to him when he passed by a hallway in the Blackwatch wing and a shiver ran down his spine, like a caress that had suddenly realized was touching him. He turned around, but he was by himself. He brushed it off as he made way for McCree’s dormitory and used his ID to enter the dark room. He had sent the cowboy on a mission, the first without Reyes’ command. Gabriel thought he was ready, even if Jesse had wondered all the way through their briefing.

He had asked Gabriel to water the plants on his window box while he was gone, because apparently, he trusted Reyes, one of the busiest people in Blackwatch, to do so. And yet—here Reyes was. Finding the time to water his stupid, colorful flowers, every day for the past four days. Gabriel had fallen into a simple routine: walked straight to the flowers, bottle full of tab water already in hand and poured the right amount over the soil. Then he would look around the room, left behind messy with traces of who was Jesse all over. The colorful serapes he had collected over the years brightening the room from the opened closet, the variety of boots scattered like a trail out of it, as if he had tried on every pair before deciding on one, and three different cowboy hats on top of his dresser, one empty spot where his black one usually goes. Two drawers left opened with clothing items hanging on the edge. The pillows are out of place, and the sheets cover is mostly on the floor than on the mattress.

Gabriel break routine as he walks towards the hats and aligns them. While he’s at it, he pushes the clothes inside the drawers and closes them. He sees a few shirts and pants on the floor and, not knowing if they’re clean or not, he kicks them into a pile by the dresser before leaving. When the door whooshes closed behind him, another shiver courses through his skin.

\--

The next day, after watering the plants, he lines up the pairs of boots in the closet and shuts the door. Another shiver wraps around his waist, like the hold of an arm he has never had the gift of feeling. He turns around and there’s obviously no one.

He leaves the room and lets Jesse know he watered the plants again. Like the days before, McCree doesn’t respond. Gabriel wasn’t worried the first time, and he shouldn’t be worried now, but his gut aches. His chest feels hollowed and it’s almost like the walls are closing in on him once he steps out of the cowboy’s room. Like that room is a safe place, where he is no one, but once he steps foot out of it, he’s back to reality. A reality where something’s missing and he shakes away the feeling by getting into work.

\--

He doesn’t go at noon to water the flowers the next day, he goes long after dinner, after everyone’s practically asleep and he should be. It’s three am when he realizes he hadn’t watered them and fills the bottle with water from the sink in his bathroom before pacing over to Jesse’s room, thinking about the work that still waits for him.

The shiver down his spine returns, like the embrace of a lost lover, and it’s not unwelcomed. A sharp electric shock runs through his fingers when he slides his ID in the scanner, and the beep echoes in his ears. He wastes no time on watering the plants and, like usual, looks around the room. It looks different, but tidier, and Gabriel prefers it like this. The bed still looks a mess, but there’s something inviting about it.

He places the empty bottle on the nightstand and sits at the edge. It’s stiffer than his own mattress, but it’s what they could get so that every agent could have their own bed. His eyelids suddenly feel heavy and he yawns. Another shiver wraps around his body. An invitation to lie down. A cold breeze reminding him he’s still human.

He grabs one of the pillows and places it where it should go before grabbing the second one. That’s when he feels something else inside the pillow case. He has his hand digging inside before he can stop himself and pulls out a folded hoodie. He recognizes the logo and the color, the standard Blackwatch hoodie. Except this one has the edge of the sleeves stretched out, the zippers broken, and there’s a hole through one of the pockets.

His heart thumps hard against his chest when he realizes this is his old hoodie. One he gave McCree on a careless night when the cowboy—back then about 20 years old—shivered in his sleep while they were taking shelter in a motel. He hadn’t asked for it back when he saw how Jesse clung to it through the night and on their way back to base.

The room feels cold, and too lonely. He can’t move, something’s keeping him linked to the mattress, like ribbons around his ankles. His knees feel weak and he doesn’t have the energy to fight and run away. He puts on his old hoodie and lies down as another shiver waves around his body.

It’s the touch of a ghost, a caress from someone he has longed for. He can feel a hot breath against his ear and the whispers of Jesse’s voice before he laughs. He realizes he allowed Jesse to get too close, to touch for too long and speak to him in ways he shouldn’t. Gabriel realizes he allowed himself to melt into these actions, to never stop them.

Now he misses them. Jesse has never been apart from him for so long. They work together like old time partners, he never saw a reason to keep each other from doing missions together. But Gabriel was needed elsewhere and Jesse had to go. He hadn’t put too much thought on it, but now the room reminds him of why he didn’t’ want to let go. It was a warmth that came with Jesse, a different kind than what Gabriel naturally feels.

He drifts asleep, still shivering with the ghost of Jesse’s arms around him, the memory of his touch and the recordings of his voice. He knows it all stops at some point, but he can’t tell if it’s better or worse.

When he wakes up, he takes a good look around the room, and though he prefers it for an ordinary bedroom, he hates it for Jesse’s room. He can’t see where Jesse was before he left, or what he did. He can’t see the stupid, colorful serapes that match the stupid, colorful flowers on the window. Nor the different shades of brown boots with the spurs.

He turns it all back. He throws the pillows, lets the cover slip off the bed, moves the hat a little, scatters the boots and the clothes, and opens the drawers again. He leaves in a hurry, forgetting the hoodie is still around him.

\---

He returns a while after lunch, with the bottle in hand. There’s no shivering as he slides the card, but there’s a strong beat from his heart when he sees Jesse, watering the plants. The younger man turns to him and quickly smiles. It’s as bright as Gabriel remembers, enough to make dead flowers bloom back to life. Enough to make Gabriel tremble to his core.

“Hiya, boss!”

“You’re back,” Gabriel comments as he steps inside out of habit.

“Wrapped up early, thought Athena would alert you.”

“I don’t bring my tablet with me when I come, since it’s for a few seconds,” he lies, he spends more than a few seconds, even on day one he took his time, surrounded by Jesse’s scent.

“Well, I think you’ll be glad to be relief of yer duty,” Jesse says, placing an empty glass down. “Ya serve me well, soldier.”

Gabriel huffs a laugh as he looks away for a second. “Good, now I can go back to real business, you know, like saving the world from Overwatch’s shadow. I want a full report in my desk before midnight, agent.”

“Yessir,” Jesse solutes before Gabriel turns around, but the cowboy speaks again. “If ya wanted it back, ya could’ve said so back then, y’know.” Gabriel freezes under the doorway and closes his fists, the stretched out sleeves of his hoodie fitting inside. He wants to act like nothing’s different, like he only did what was asked, but suddenly, he feels like a thief caught red handed. Like he stole something more than an old jacket. “I’ll miss it, though.”

Gabriel snaps back to reality and slips the hoodie off his shoulders before he turns to McCree. “Keep it.” He throws it across the room and the cowboy catches it without letting a sleeve touch the floor.

Gabriel watches how Jesse folds it neatly and quickly and winks back at him. “Thank you. I’ll be in your office with that report later.”


End file.
